308 MYTH AND SCIENCE. 



down to our days. We have a plain proof of this 

 in a work dedicated to Pius IX. by M. Gaume, in 

 which he sets forth the virtue of holy water against 

 the innumerable powers of evil which, as he declares, 

 still people the cosmic spaces, and similar rites may 

 be traced in the liturgies of all modern religions. 

 This belief is directly founded on the fanciful per- 

 sonification and incarnation of a power in speech 

 itself, in song, and in sound. David had similar 

 ideas of dancing and its accessories, and the walls 

 of Jericho are said to have fallen at the sound of 

 the trumpets, as if these contained the spirit of 

 God. The Patagonians, to quote a single instance 

 from among savages, drive away the evil spirits 

 of diseases with magic songs, accompanied by drums 

 on which demons are painted. To these mythical 

 ideas we must refer the worship of trees, which 

 involves that of birds, so far as they whistle and 

 sing. 



The worship of trees and groves is universal : 

 peculiar trees, groves, and woods are worshipped in 

 Tahiti, in the Fiji Islands, and throughout Polynesia; 

 in barbarous Asia, in Europe, America, and the whole 

 of Africa. Cameron, Schweinfurth, Stanley, and other 

 modern travellers in Africa give many instances of 

 this. Schweinfurth describes such a worship among 

 the Niam-Niam, who hold that the forest is inhabited 

 by invisible beings. This worship is naturally com- 

 bined with that of birds, which become the confidants 



